"Treat us more as human beings than robots" - Ons Jabeur calls out WTA over hectic schedule & burnout crisis, makes emotional plea amid hiatus

Ons Jabeur shared about her possible comeback to the sport and also called out the WTA for the hectic schedule. The Tunisian took an indefinite break from professional tennis after her first-round exit at Wimbledon in June this year.

The former World No. 2 has had a poor 2025 season, with a 15-15 win-loss record in singles. During her opening match against Viktoriya Tomova at Wimbledon, Jabeur retired due to injury and later skipped the Canadian Open. Not long after, she shared a social media post to announce her break from tennis. Revealing her reason, Jabeur had said that she was not feeling happy on the court and wanted to "rediscover the joy of simply living."

Four months after competitive tennis, Ons Jabeur expressed her feelings about her break and her plans for her return to court. In an interview with The National published on November 4, the 31-year-old revealed that she will make a comeback and only feature in the events of her choosing to avoid burnout and stress.

“I feel I want to choose my tournaments. I want to make the schedule adapt to me, not me adapting to the schedule. I will honestly try to speak up more and get the tennis community to treat us better as players, to treat us more as human beings than robots that play tennis, tennis, tennis all the time. "This is a very beautiful sport and we need to be smart about it. And I just want to be myself on the court. I don't want to feel the stress. I felt so good for the last two, three months that I'm not stressed,” Jabeur added.

Ons Jabeur hasn't reached the WTA singles final since her triumph at the Ningbo Open in September 2023. She is ranked World No. 78 in the WTA singles.

Ons Jabeur confident of 'finding joy on the tennis court' again

Day One: The Championships - Wimbledon 2025 - Source: Getty

In the same interview, Ons Jabeur revealed how playing tennis without breaks slowly turned into sadness and pushed her into depression. She played over fifty singles matches each season in 2021, 2022, and 2023, resulting in burnout and a dip in her rankings in the last two seasons.

“I wasn't ever free from tennis," Jabeur said. "Trying to find something that makes me happy outside tennis was difficult and given the very tough two years that I had, it wasn't easy."

Ons Jabeur also confirmed that she will come back to the sport someday and "find joy on the tennis court" again.

“The happy place, the place where I find my joy suddenly became my sadness and basically became the place that gave me depression," she added. "And I was kind of scared, and I was thinking like, ‘What if I never find joy on the tennis court ever again? But I don't think that will be the case. And I'm not retiring like most of the people think, I'll be coming back someday.”

After her break from the sport, the two-time Wimbledon finalist announced her plans to launch the Ons Jabeur Academy in Dubai. She also launched the Ons Jabeur Foundation to "empower women and children with access to sport" and started the Serve For Gaza initiative to raise money for victims.

Edited by Hitesh Nigam